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Black Friday And Cyber Monday Trends For 2017

Vice President of Smarketing, responsible for the sales and marketing processes and helping our clients exceed their business goals.

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Black Friday continues to be a day when we suspend our Thanksgiving weekend food comas for a few hours in order to grab great holiday shopping bargains. And since it’s getting even easier to shop at home or on the go — anywhere away from the malls — mobile has become the new Black Friday darling for shoppers intent on scoring great deals. Extend it to Cyber Monday and it's a retailer's dream.

In 2016, Thanksgiving, Black Friday and Cyber Monday online sales came in at $12.8 billion, a 15.2% bump from the same period in 2015. Cyber Monday definitely held its own with $3.45 billion in sales, taking bragging rights of the biggest day ever in U.S. e-commerce history. Almost 40% of sales on what used to be a brick-and-mortar shopping weekend occurred on a mobile device. And that’s on track to scale again for 2017 with mobile remaining the darling of this shopping-frenzied weekend.

So, what do experts predict for this holiday sales weekend this year? We’ve identified some of the top trends and share them here.

Shoppers will continue to access both digital touchpoints and stores.

Although brick-and-mortar locations will see less traffic, there will still be a trend for shoppers to dip into all channels. According to the Forrester 2017 Holiday Outlook report, analyst Fiona Swerdlow states, “US online shoppers research and shop interchangeably between digital touch points and stores, underscoring the importance (and complexity) of delivering great experiences across a growing constellation of touchpoints. The option to buy online and pick up in the store later was the reason that 33 percent of consumers decided to make a particular purchase last holiday season.”

Businesses that optimize for mobile conversions will be the big winners.

Consumers — especially those in frantic shopping modes on Black Friday and Cyber Monday — will have little tolerance for spotty mobile performance. It’s true that mobile performance is improving, but huge sales are contingent upon responsive, personalized service. 60% of shoppers use their phones to do research even when in store to look up product information, do price comparisons and check online reviews.

Marketers who want to grab the tail of this Black Friday comet will need to plan and tidy up their mobile presence in anticipation of the big day. Some things to consider include optimizing shopping interfaces, cleaning up mobile ads and product feeds, creating friendly CTAs and accommodating the diversity of mobile devices as well as payment methods.

Cyber Monday spending will show a slight increase.

It started out on shaky ground, but Cyber Monday has shown that it has the chops to pull in huge holiday sales figures. As mentioned earlier, Cyber Monday 2016 has earned its place in U.S. e-commerce history with its $3.45 billion spending. This year isn’t predicted to be as notorious, but experts predict a not-too-shabby $3.81 billion in sales, with mobile sales accounting for $1.24 billion of that.

The big three online stores for Black Friday and Cyber Monday are what you would expect.

No surprises here. Amazon, Walmart and Target will be the big online winners this year. Amazon and Walmart are expected to dominate with either Target or Best Buy coming in at the third spot, but the smart money is on Target. Not only are these behemoth retailers savvy marketers, but improvements in mobile shopping will continue to ratchet them into the holiday shopping stratosphere.

New renegade shopping days may cut into Black Friday and Cyber Monday sales figures.

Black Friday could be getting a little bit grayer due to the people who don’t dive head first into the holidays on that day, choosing to spread their shopping over several days during the entire holiday season. Green Monday — the second Monday in December — has become the highest online sales day for the month of December. Some people jump in early and actually shop on Thanksgiving Day, usually with online purchases as most stores still opt to close on the holiday. Still, others took advantage of Amazon’s Prime Day in July to grab big bargains, generating almost $1 billion in sales this year.

Millennials aren’t buying into the hype.

At the onset of the first Black Friday in 1952, it was a big deal for consumers, generating excitement to officially launch the upcoming holiday season. Even Cyber Monday, established in 2005, created a new type of buzz to excite consumers to take advantage of easy online shopping after the long Thanksgiving weekend. But today’s younger shoppers — ages 13 to 35 — seem to be immune to the hype: 75% of them will opt to spread their shopping out over the following weeks. Millennial-friendly brands such as REI, Everlane and Patagonia are drawing a line at the capitalist undertones of the Black Friday swirl and choosing to close their doors on that day or making donations to environmental causes.

Only time will tell what impact any of these trends will have on actual sales figures. What remains, at least for now, is the anticipation of a major shopping weekend for retailers hoping that all channels will be flowing with robust sales.